


Wells of Inspiration

by Doctorinblue



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Mostly Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 04:03:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14662896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctorinblue/pseuds/Doctorinblue
Summary: It's at least ten days into hell freezing over.





	Wells of Inspiration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shewho](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewho/gifts).



It's at least ten days into hell freezing over. Hawkeye has tried everything to get warm, from wearing all his clothing (the chafing outweighed any relief) to stealing potatoes (returned to the dirt cold and semi-edible). The wind chews right through the blankets, howls like a captured animal, and if his eyes dart to the nearest stove again - he'll climb inside if he can just figure out how - he'll get a section 8 for sure.

He and BJ are on the drunk side of drinking, but it hasn't done Hawkeye any favors tonight. The warmth has burned from his veins, leaving him with a foggy head full of equally murky ideas he might just be drunk enough to see through.

He fish flops around on his cot before trying to weasel deeper into the blankets. He's bartered his way to an extra one and stolen the other right off Frank's cot to wrap up a semi-frozen Beej. Frank doesn't need it anyway; he has Hot Lips as his heating service for the evening.

Peeking out beneath the blankets, he can just make out BJ in the dim light of the moon. He appears to be asleep. Or, at the very least, he's drunk enough to be silent awake. Too much gin always has the opposite effect on Hawkeye. It makes him squirm. The wind lets out another long howl and the tent rattles, but hey, if it implodes they just might be properly warm for the first time in days.  
He misses summer so much it hurts. Literally. He misses air so thick it has to be inhaled like a milkshake. He misses complaining about the heat. At least then, on lucky days, he could pull off his shirt and find a patch of water to linger in until he resembled dry fruit. He flops again.

This is BJ's first winter. 

This is the first time Korea's air has clawed at his cheeks, and his hands have frozen inside their gloves. Probably, this is the first time he's been this cold in his whole life. He should be the one complaining, instead of lying there like a log. It's annoying Hawkeye. Misery loves company, and Hawkeye is made of at least eighty percent misery.

How can it be so damn cold? If Hawkeye has to endure one more frozen hour in surgery or one more hypothermic walk to the mess tent, he'll actually go mad. He teeters on the edge anyway. It's a tightrope act that BJ balances, but even he can't hold back the wind. 

He briefly considers joining him in his cot. They'll be warmer together for sure, a pile of blankets and men. Hell, he can probably justify it easily enough and he doubts BJ will offer up much of a protest. But Frank might slink in back before dawn - before Hawkeye wakes enough to extract himself from their newly made nest. Good old Ferret Face will be all too willing to share all seen, no matter how innocent.

Hawkeye rolls away until he's staring at the tent wall. He can't see BJ's back here, can't imagine himself pressed into it tightly. Or with BJ into his, breath hot against the side of his neck where he'd just have to nuzzle to fit. He lets out a breath, and for a moment, he considers throwing off the blankets. But he forces his thoughts back to the straight and narrow. BJ isn't his. BJ will never be his.

He can't think about that or his misery percentage will reach one hundred and he doesn't want to go there again. Something else, anything else. He sits up quickly, blankets falling down, cold air hitting him squarely in the chest. He exhales, ideas toppling over each other too rapidly to grab anything but the worst. Or the best. He tugs at the closest, the warmest. The one that he needs BJ for because doing stupid together is much more fun than alone. 

"A hot spring!"

The other cot shifts. He is awake, the rat. Hawkeye waits until he sits up, yanking the blankets up over his head until only his eyes are visible to glare at Hawkeye. Or maybe that's the gin. It's hard to tell. But he's upright, and Hawkeye already knows they're both drunk enough to do something a little stupid. Or a lot stupid. He'll figure out the exact quantity later, he's busy now. 

"What's the camp been missing?" Hawkeye asks, starting to wrap himself up carefully. 

"Consistently running water?" BJ asks, mirroring his actions. "Pest control. A decent heater."

"Yes," Hawkeye agrees, standing. "Yes to all, but the answer was hot spring."

BJ blinks up at him. 

It's just what the camp needs, he thinks, climbing to his feet - boots already on because he likes his toes right where they are. 

"Come on, Beej," he mutters, stuffing a hat down onto his head. 

They'll wade in to their chest, let the heat thaw them out, melt that ice that has replaced their skin.

"A hot spring," BJ says, shifting to his feet. 

Hawkeye stomps his feet, rubs his hands together, then tucks them beneath his armpits (because groin might be warmer, but they probably won't make it to the hot spring). He's just drunk enough to kiss BJ and an impossible task needs to replace the possible quickly. 

"A hot spring," he agrees, grabbing the glass from the table and sloshing it back. 

At least antifreeze doesn't mind the cold. 

BJ is blinking at him slowly, shifting his weight around until he nods, grins. He reaches out, Hawkeye fills the glass and BJ swallows it. For a moment Hawkeye is burning, a fire mimicking man.

Then they step outside. 

He's not a hot spring expert, exactly. Even sober. But he knows they have to dig. He knows they exist in Korea, and there is no reason to believe they don't exist right in their front yard. 

They start across the silent camp, blankets dragging across the dirt. BJ's close and if they weren't on their way to relief, he'd stop and throw his blankets around him and pull him close. He's been dying to do it anyway, even in mid-summer, since BJ landed in his broken heart, in a broken Korea, and made them both a little better by simply existing.

Klinger steps out of the shadows, nearly causing Hawkeye to jump. Hawkeye stops short, BJ bumping into his back, and looks Klinger over. He's in a dress - got to admire the determination - but he's wearing it over what has to be at least two pairs of fatigues. He's extra puffy and looks stiff and tired.

"Password!"

"We need a shovel, Klinger."

Klinger lowers the rifle and leans in. 

"You guys finally kill Major Burns?"

"Shovel, Klinger."

Klinger points out, and both Hawkeye and BJ spin in time. The supply shed. Hawkeye's been there plenty of times, but never on the search for a shovel. BJ creaks the door open, and they step in, and can't risk the light. It's dark, BJ's hand touches his back as they make their way around the shelves. The cot is here. Hawkeye swallows as his knees bump it. He's imagined BJ in here. With him. On the cot. Under him. Or over. Both. The gin is retreating, and he can't afford to be this sober here with BJ. So he fakes it.

"Found it," he says, fingers fumbling until they wrap around the handle.

He feels around, grabs another and manages to push it into BJ's hand. They turn in the darkness, and Hawkeye is all too willing to run from that cot (even if he can't do the same with BJ). BJ leads them back out, Hawkeye's fingers trapped into BJ's blanket. It's dark, he justifies. He can't let go, he realizes. 

BJ hits a shelf and it wobbles. He winces and Hawkeye's fingers curl a little tighter, retroactive protection, and he just resists the urge to stoop and kiss the sting away. It's a little less of an actual doctor reaction, and a lot more of a helpless idiot one. Probably BJ is smart enough to spot a difference.

"Where to?" BJ whispers. 

Hawkeye starts across the camp, stops on the side of the road (if anything in Korea can be called a road (or maybe everything can)). His ears ache, despite the hat. His bones ache, the cold reaching places inside him he hasn't acknowledged in years. Hawkeye is keenly aware they're both sobering up too fast to keep up with such a wild plan, but he clings to it anyway (clings to BJ) for the same reason people hold onto anything. Hope.

"Here," he says. 

He looks up, finds Klinger leaning against a post smoking a cigar and watching the show. Probably trying to decide if he should alert someone or join in on the scheme. Hawkeye ignores him, when they strike liquid gold he'll be first in line.

"Here, Beej," he says, again.

BJ throws his blankets off in a great sweep, and Hawkeye's fairly sure his gulp of air is audible. He does the same with a little less flair. They take their shovels, aim at the dirt and stab. The shovels stop cold. The vibrations travel up his arms, and he blinks down at the ground. Damn it. Frozen. He wiggles it into the dirt, stomps his foot against the flat edge until bits of dirt crack outward. Progress.

The dirt breaks easier after it cracks (and doesn't he know all about that). They work in silence, shoulder to shoulder, and they're digging to nothing but a chance at sanity, but he's finally warm. Sweat trickles down his neck and his arms are sore and neither of them should be risking their hands like this, but he dumps another shovel full up over the edge.

And right onto a boot. 

"Hawkeye."

Potter.

He looks up to find him staring down at their waist deep hole.

"What the horse fritters do you boys think you're doing?"

He sounds so much like a father sometimes - like his own father (minus the horse references) - that it tears Hawkeye apart. He doesn't admit it, but it's nice, once in a while. To have someone looking out for him, while he looks out for everyone he can keep an eye on.

"Hot spring," BJ offers, but they both know it's a lost cause. 

And he's too hot now anyway. Tired. The wind has died down a little and his cot sounds like a tiny, tiny, piece of heaven. BJ lying across the tent sounds like a slice of it, like six feet of sunshine burning a hole in Hawkeye's fragile stability. The worst part, without a doubt, is knowing that if he crumbles, BJ will spend a lifetime (or at least the rest of the war) picking up the pieces.

"Bed," Potter says, and he's helping them out of the ground, one by one. 

He slaps dirt off their arms, chests, and Hawkeye tries not to yawn. He feels like a scolded child, looking the part won't help a thing. 

BJ starts for the Swamp, and Hawkeye follows. He knows the hole will be filled by morning. And he'll have to make a joke of the spring, to protect BJ if nothing else. They'll laugh it off, and part of him will always wonder if they could have made it there. If they could have found something real in the dirt. 

 

He glances at BJ's back, follows him into their little corner of hell. 

He heads for his cot, but BJ catches his arm, runs his fingers down to his palm, wraps around and gives a small and solid tug.   
"No," he says. "We'll freeze."

He leads them across the short distance, gently pushes him down onto his own cot. Hawkeye's heart hammers and his mouth is too dry. He needs a drink. Something strong. BJ gathers up the remaining blankets in the tent, glances back at him. 

"Lie down," he says. 

And Hawkeye isn't much for orders, but he's complies at once. Blankets are piled on top of him, every action so deliberate, and maybe BJ isn't as sober as Hawkeye first suspected. He is though, he should stop him. But something about the 'Frank be damned' in BJ's eyes doesn't let him get the words out. 

"Scoot," he says, and Hawkeye does. 

And BJ lays beside him, and they're both too tall, too much for a single cot. BJ is pressed hard into his back, and the blankets are pulled up to cover them both. 

And if Frank walks in now, Hawkeye might commit murder. At the very least, he'll put pudding in his shoes for the rest of the war. 

An arm slips over his waist, and his breathing stutters for only a moment. The nuzzle almost kills him. Right into the side of his neck, lips press against his shoulder, then nothing. He lays awake, and he's certain BJ is already gone.

Probably they're safe. He's certain Colonel Potter can handle Frank any day, if he does leave Margaret's arms long enough to stumble onto this...whatever this is. BJ is still against his back, and Hawkeye doesn't know if he'll ever sleep again, but at least he's warm. And for the first time, since his boots have touched Korean soil, he feels safe.


End file.
